A Unique Child: Child Development - First love

Last month's Budget announcement that working parents will from 2015 be able to claim back 20 per cent of their nursery, childminder or nanny costs up to a total of £1,200 per child will be a welcome development for many families struggling in the current economic climate. And in the short term, it may seem like a positive solution. However, there are other more subtle and long-term consequences to childcare and family welfare provision that is driven primarily by the politics of economics and fails to take the biological, emotional and social needs of the young child into account.

Humans are the only species of mammal which deliberately separates its young from the mother for economic and social reasons before it is able to fend for itself. Mammal means 'one who suckles its young', and due to the size of the human brain relative to the mother's pelvis, human babies are the most helpless of mammals at birth, dependent on the mother to provide for every need. In biological terms, the first nine months of post-natal life are a continuation of gestation outside the womb. This secondary gestational relationship is not purely physical but encompasses emotional, social and cultural development.